1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a sensor for detecting a stem cell differentiation, including: (a) an electrode; and (b) a substrate for an alkaline phosphatase.
2. Background Art
Cell chip technology is a promising tool for utilization in cell based assays. There are two kinds of cell detection systems for these chips. These systems are based on optical detection and electrical (electrochemical) detection respectively. Optical systems allow one to observe visual changes of the cells and have high sensitivity and selectivity. Optical systems are limited by size of the instrument and the process of transforming the optical signal into an electrical signal [1-2].
While electrical cell detecting systems are relatively less developed than optical systems, they have the ability to be miniaturized and the signals are easily analyzed. There have been some attempts to analyze living cells as electrochemically dynamic systems by detecting electron generation and electron transfer at the interface [3].
Living cells have been studied by many electrochemical situations such as electron transfer at electro active centers in cells, open circuit potential at the cell/sensor interface, electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS), scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to obtain images of the respiratory activity of collagen-embedded living cells, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and activation of an oxygen electrode [4-11].
However, there has been no attempt to detect the differentiation of MES cells using electrical or electrochemical systems.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
Throughout this application, various publications and patents are referred and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosures of these publications and patents in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.